Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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37. To ask the Minister for Rural and Community Development if she accepts that there continues to be an unacceptably high level of vacancy and dereliction in many local authority areas; if she will commit to increase funding to tackle vacancy and dereliction rates in County Offaly; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26604/24]

Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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Does the Minister accept that there continues to be high levels of vacancy and dereliction in many local authority areas? In particular, I raise my area, County Offaly, where the local authority is grappling with derelict and vacant buildings. I acknowledge that €2 million in funding was provided under the urban regeneration and development fund, but I would like the Minister to look at whether additional funding could be provided. I understand that under the rural regeneration fund, €1 billion was provided between 2019 and 2027. I would like to see increased funding for County Offaly to tackle the problem of dereliction.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The town centre first policy is a major cross-government policy that recognises vacancy and dereliction are still a challenge in many rural towns and villages. It seeks to breathe new life into our town centres, supporting the Our Rural Future vision for a thriving rural Ireland. Central to town centre first is the range of support funding, including my Department’s rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF, and the town and village renewal scheme. In 2023, the town and village renewal scheme placed a particular emphasis on enhancing economic and social vibrancy, along with a focus on vacancy and dereliction. In April, I was delighted to announce €20.4 million in funding for 82 successful projects under the scheme. The full list of successful projects is on my Department’s website and includes a number of projects aimed at developing community facilities in vacant or derelict properties. In May, I announced €164 million under the RRDF for 30 projects throughout the country. The fund is having a demonstrably positive impact on addressing dereliction, in particular when it comes to heritage buildings in rural towns and this year's successful applications again included a range of imaginative and innovative approaches to the use of derelict and vacant properties.

Furthermore, over the last two years, I have also rolled out the building acquisition measure to support local authorities in purchasing vacant and derelict buildings for future development for community purposes. This measure has seen the purchase of disused Garda stations, banks, cinemas, parish halls and schools for redevelopment as community facilities. To support the roll-out of the town centre first policy, my Department is also funding town regeneration officers in rural local authorities. These officers are engaging directly with local communities to address how they can best progress the development of their towns and villages, including addressing the challenges of vacancy and dereliction. I have seen at first hand the impact that vacancy and dereliction can have on our rural towns and villages and I remain absolutely committed to addressing these issues and to making rural areas better places to work, live, invest in, raise a family and visit.

Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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I acknowledge that these schemes are positive and bring about improvements if towns and villages are lucky to avail of the funding through the application which is made by the local authority. They are very positive and that is why I am asking for increased funding to be given to our local authority, Offaly County Council. I acknowledge the work of the council's regeneration team, including the regeneration officers who, as the Minister said, have been funded. It is a brilliant idea. It is practical and I hope it will make a difference in counties like mine.

The council's regeneration team in County Offaly has been proactive in issuing notices to property owners. I understand that if the regeneration team does not receive a reply, the property is placed on the derelict sites register, which means the owner will incur an annual tax and eventually the council might issue a compulsory purchase order. However, the focus should also be in the area of preventing dereliction and vacancy ever arising. For that, we need to ensure we have a fully co-ordinated approach. Just yesterday, my colleagues and I raised the issue of the 13.5% VAT rate that is crippling many small businesses, including restaurants and cafés. We could certainly avoid many properties becoming vacant if we did more to prevent them going out of business. That is why we need a co-ordinated approach across Departments, increased funding and for schemes to be less bureaucratic.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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We have appointed town regeneration officers in every county. They will engage with communities and with landowners who have derelict properties nothing is happening to. The Deputy and I know well that there is a myriad of reasons that properties are left derelict. I often go into a town and ask why on earth no one is living in those houses. However, there is probably a story behind it. It is quite complex and is often to do with inheritance. A load of things are happening. However, a lot of work is being done on it and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has the Croí Cónaithe grant and the living city initiative under his Department. We have a number of social housing programmes, including the social housing investment programme and the capital assistance scheme, and local authorities and approved housing bodies are tackling vacancy and dereliction through the repurposing and renewing of vacant buildings as new social homes. I saw it in my town, Clones. It would do you good to go down a street that used to be full of dereliction. People are now coming back to live in those towns and it is positive.

Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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I thank the Minister for her reply. I reiterate that this could work better and be even more effective than it currently is if there was a co-ordinated approach, such as ensuring businesses stay in place and thrive and that they are supported to a greater extent. To that end, I hope the Government will take on board the need to cut the VAT rate to 9% to keep some of those businesses in place in our streets where they are needed in our villages and rural towns.

We have the same issue with dereliction, as the Minister pointed out, with empty houses. I accept there is a multitude of reasons they remain empty. I understand that currently only six properties in County Offaly have received funding under the vacant property refurbishment grant initiative. We also know from the Irish Independent that only 127 property refurbishment grants have been drawn down by homeowners since the scheme came into effect. That is approximately one in 50 of the 6,300 applications that have been made so far, with just over half, or 3,274, approved since the scheme was launched in July 2022.

This certainly demonstrates the scale of the problem. If there is a low uptake in a scheme then the scheme obviously needs to be looked at, reviewed, tweaked and improved. I hope that will happen with the derelict housing and that certainly could reduce the numbers of derelict houses in our towns and villages.

I want to see my own county of Offaly thrive and for no houses to be left vacant or derelict, particularly in the middle of a housing crisis. We could look at measures and co-ordination is key.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. There is co-ordination and it is being done through the town regeneration officers. It is their job to work together through the local authority and to identify funding schemes.

Offaly has not been doing too badly. I remember being up in the supermarket I visited in Edenderry and €12.25 million was provided for that. That is a wonderful project. I visited it myself. It is an old supermarket and has been transformed. Indeed, other funding was provided there are for different initiatives. I have been to Offaly on a couple of occasions.

On funding, good applications always get funding. There is a remote working hub in Killleigh which received €250,000 and €300,000 was provided to support the purchase of a former school retail unit in Clara to develop a multipurpose community space. A great deal is happening out there. If some town is not getting the funding, they need to talk to the local authority and need to engage with it. They need to get an application in to my Department. In fairness, we have been supporting towns and villages the length and breadth of this country. It would do your heart good when you go into these towns.

I do not know how it is all happening in Edenderry but we are looking forward to going back to clipping the ribbon on it because I am sure it must be nearly finished at this stage. Deputy Nolan would know better than I would where it is at. There is a great deal of investment.

By the way, there was a suite of business supports for small businesses. I understand the challenges they face. I heard the man on the radio this morning from An Post telling us about the number of online shopping purchases that are being made and that we have to get online and change the way we do business. The centre of our towns are changing because a great deal more people are shopping online. We know that. That is not so much for me but with my daughters, there are always boxes appearing in the house.